Ipswich v Charlton: Ipswich Town boss Mick McCarthy hopes striker David McGoldrick will go on a goalscoring run after his late goal in tonight’s 3-0 home win over Charlton Athletic.

The Blues front man had hit both posts and the crossbar in three separate incidents and fired a shot over in the closing moments of the match.

He finally got the goal his performance deserved in the final minute, clipping the ball expertly over the keeper for his seventh of the season, to add the cherry on the top of yet another accomplished home victory.

“We were all as happy for him as he was for himself,” said McCarthy, reacting to McGoldrick’s first goal from open play since the 2-0 win at Blackpool on November 1. “I think he was relieved because he’d had a couple of chances. It was lovely he got his goal because he’s been playing well.”

With Daryl Murphy, the division’s leading scorer, taking his tally for the campaign to 17 – one more than top-scorer McGoldrick netted last season – McCarthy continued: “Murph (Daryl Murphy) was a willing accomplice for him last year when he got all the goals and that’s changed around this season. But he (McGoldrick) got a goal tonight and that might start a run of him getting goals. Let’s hope it does.”

Tommy Smith had broken the deadlock before Murphy’s crucial second, Town winning their ninth home match of the season to maintain their grip on second spot in the Championship table and go 10 points clear of seventh place Norwich.

“Happy days!” said McCarthy, the win coming in front of the biggest Portman Road crowd in almost four years (26,157). “It’s nice when you get that backing from the supporters, and that trust starts to come back, and you get 26 thousand in, that you don’t let them down.

“I think home form generally helps, but our away form has been good too. We have to travel everywhere. We are geographically challenged; it takes us six, seven, eight hours to get to some places. They all have to come here though.

“Do teams fear coming here? I’ve no idea. I think we’re getting a little bit of respect from people. If we weren’t, after the results we’ve been getting, there’d be something wrong wouldn’t there?

“It’s certainly not a partisan, nasty place to come and play, Ipswich. I’ve been played and managed teams here and it’s not that.

“You don’t have to have that though, you just need a decent team and at the minute we’ve got that.”